My Thoughts On Jim Lites & The Controversy He Created in Dallas

As the Red Wings roll into Dallas tonight, they are headed straight into the eye of a storm that has nothing to do with them. If you don’t pay attention to league-wide news, then you probably missed that the Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites requested an interview with media outlets and proceeded to lambast the two star players on his team for the way they’ve been playing this season.

“They are fucking horseshit,” Lites said about Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn. He went on to describe their play as embarrassing, saying that “we are a stars-driven league and our stars aren’t getting it done.

Though the verbiage was probably not the best, the underlying message to Lites’ words was a unified one from the top of the organization. Simply put: they expect more from their star players.

But was this the right way to deliver this message?

Hockey teams are structured so differently from the rest of the business world, so it’s hard to compare, but I can’t help thinking about how something like that would go down in my office. I imagine that, for whatever reason, my performance at mid-year was not living up to management’s expectations. So instead of the CEO speaking directly with me, he books a meeting with the shareholders to tell them, ‘we’re paying this kid and he just isn’t getting it done’.

It’s unprofessional. And, if I’m being honest, it’s kind of embarrassing. If ownership and management had an issue with Seguin and Benn’s play, the first step is to book a private meeting with them (which Lites never did, according to Seguin), not air it all out in public.

I understand what Lites was trying to do. By calling them out publicly, he was trying to hold them accountable and light a fire under their asses. Who knows, maybe it will work, but isolating your top point producers like that, especially when they are on long-term contracts, runs the risk of ruining their relationship with the team. What if they ask to be traded? How will the fan base feel then?

The most crazy part of all of this to me is that they’re not even that bad! They are the team leaders in goals (Benn with 15, Seguin with 11) and points (Seguin with 32, Benn with 30). I understand that for them, yes it’s low. They are being paid like elite players and aren’t performing up to those standards, but when you look down the depth chart, no other player not named Alex Radulov (who is their line mate, by the way) is even close! Jason Spezza is fourth in points with 19, followed by Miro Heiskanen with 17 and Esa Lindell and Devin Shore with 16.

Lites’ message should have been to the whole team, because that is how they are expected to play – as a team. They shouldn’t live or die by these two single players.

But Lites has never been one to shy away from bold moves. He was the guy who orchestrated the defection of Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, and Vyacheslav Kozlov to the Detroit Red Wings on behalf of the Illitch family. He’s been around the league for a long time. He knows what he’s doing. This interview was far from a gut move. It was was a calculated attempt at sending a message to these players. I’m just not convinced it was the right way to do it.

I thought Seguin and Benn handled it well, though. They both admitted that they needed to be better. Benn told the media that he doesn’t play for ownership, but for his teammates. Seguin kinda shrugged the whole thing off.

What else are they supposed to do?

If they come out strong tonight, net a couple of goals each and turn their season around, Lites is going to get all of the credit for creating the turning point of the Stars season. If they don’t and fizzle out completely, then it’ll become clear that damaging your relationship with your star players, and destroying their morale, just doesn’t work.

It’s a bold move. And we’ll see if it pays off.